From the article:

"The 2016 tour will be the first time Pet Sounds will be played in its entirety on stage in 17 years. When Pet Sounds was released in 1966, "We didn't play it on stage," Wilson says, describing the record as, "an album that started out with 'Wouldn't It Be Nice' and just went from there."

***
Was the Winter 2007 Pet Sounds tour just my imagination then?

And didn't it get played once or twice more recently, I think maybe during the Jeff Beck tour?

Not to mention the Pet Sounds tours of 2000 in the US and the UK tours of 2002, which resulted in a live CD and DVD. I'm *pretty* sure 2002 isn't seventeen years ago...

I really don't think explaining Rocky's behaviour requires him to be mentally ill or brain damaged. He reads to me, frankly, like half the men in my family -- arrogant, illiterate, the epitome of toxic masculinity, and at that enviable level of intelligence where you're not bright enough to realise you're not bright. Couple that with a few minor brushes with stardom and good looks as a youth, and I think that pretty much covers everything that needs explaining about him. Testosterone and cluelessness can be a powerful combination.
Sadly, there are a *LOT* of "Rockys" in the world. It's just that most of them have no interest in the Beach Boys, and the few who do would tend to get banned from a board like this almost immediately, so he seems odd in this context...

Wouldn't a tape of Stan and Rocky talking about third parties be hearsay?

Obviously.  That's the question: who is on the tape and who is under discussion?

EoL

Empire of... you got a bad name!  I TOLD YOU... STAN TAPED "HE and I" and it was taped with my CONSENT... which makes it PERMISSIBLE!

Are you working with this recording when you write those chapters in your book?  Will there be a transcription?

Will anyone care if there is?

I mean, seriously. The claim here seems to be that Stan Love taped himself and Rocky saying "hur hur X lied in court". Why a tape of them saying this would be any more interesting than either of them just stating it -- why a tape would in some way make this more convincing -- I don't know (it must make sense in Rocky's brain, but then so much does that doesn't make sense to those of us in the reality-based community). I've not heard of either of them testifying (and certainly Rocky wouldn't have been around til many years after the last event dealt with in any of the lawsuits, so wouldn't have been called), so they won't be talking about *themselves* lying under oath -- if I'm wrong about that, then I *would* be interested in a taped confession of perjury, but everything Rocky's said suggests they're talking about third parties.

So we have someone who we know to be full of bullsh^H^H^H "artistic license" in his supposed statements of fact, saying he knows that someone else is definitely a liar. Absent other evidence, my guess is that this tape will be something like:
Stan: Hur hur, hey Rocky, remember when conveniently-dead and thus unable to sue for libel or refute this accusation Nik Venet lied in court for my evil brother Mike?
Rocky: STAN I "do" "remember" "that", but that wasn't as good as conveniently-dead and thus unable to sue for libel or refute this accusation Carl Wilson lying in his deposition!
Stan: Fun times. Want to go and beat the sh*t out of a mentally-ill person?
Rocky: Sure! "We'll" be saving "his" life!!! We're heroes!

(Rocky *might* actually be daft enough to name a still-living person, which would be moderately more interesting, as that would introduce the possibility of some actual evidence other than hearsay from an untrustworthy liar...)

Gah. Do I order this when I've already got the DVD, just to get the live CD version, essentially just for two tracks? That'd be paying six quid each for live versions of California Saga and California Girls...but I *would* probably listen to the CD version more than I'd watch the DVD I currently have...

I hope he'll be out there touring -- and either adding to or detracting from that legacy depending on your point of view -- for many more years. And I hope he has a great birthday.

Well geez, as unlikely as it is, can't we at least *hope* he's not out there detracting from his or the group's legacy?

I hope he and everyone lives a great, long life. But if one believes he's detracting from the band's legacy, I don't think the topic of retirement is out of line.

Or, you know, trying to do something to *not* detract from his or the band's legacy. There's always that.

Just to be clear, I don't believe he's doing anything to detract from either -- the two shows I saw last year were as good as one could imagine -- I just realise that a sizeable number of people on the board disagree with me.

I don't think he -- yet -- holds that record. BB King's career was longer, and for much of that time he played more shows a year than even Mike ever has, averaging between two and three hundred shows a year (and like MIke he played pretty much any venue that would book him, from arenas on down).

I do, however, suspect his legacy will be looked on rather more kindly than the current perception of him. In a few decades' time, once none of the band members are with us (and of course I hope that will be *many* decades), the fighting and lawsuits will have been forgotten, and assuming any music from the rock era is still listened to, the music will be all that survives.

And Mike's an integral part of that. My own tastes don't run as much to the fun-in-the-sun eras of the band, where he was most important, but even on records like Smiley Smile or Carl and the Passions, he's an important element in both songwriting and vocals. And I think it's very likely that the earlier stuff will still survive.

Mike's skills are as an entertainer, rather than an artist, and entertainers never get the respect that artists do. But he's an entertainer who's been an important part of the creation of some very fine art, and I think that will be what he's remembered for long after everyone's forgotten "wheeeeeen" or how many times he's been married or who did what in the end of the 2012 tour.

But I hope we won't have to consider what his legacy is for a long time, because I hope he'll be out there touring -- and either adding to or detracting from that legacy depending on your point of view -- for many more years. And I hope he has a great birthday.

So is this how the book is going to read? Because it kind of reads like something a middle school kid would do in "creative writing" class. At least Brian realized what a gem he had in you and Stan, even going as far as to exclaim "thanks for hiring Stan and Rocky!". This gives validation to everything you did, honestly. I especially like the nugget where you guys 'high five' each other and say "Right On, Brian!". This book should sell millions.

You're so uninterested... you're the first one to read my post... and the first one to POST... JEALOUSY is such an obvious "CHARACTER DEFECT"...  I "DARE" you to be the first "COWARD" to POST A CHAPTER OF YOUR BOOK!    The World is Full of "JEALOUS HATERS"... just look at emily she's the "STUD HATER!"  The rest of "the angry 13" are her peons!           NO "BOOKS"... JUST "HATE"

LOL, you seriously think you're the only person on this thread who ever wrote a book?

And that he's the only one on the thread who will dare to show a photograph of himself.
I think I'm entirely safe in saying that between us, the other posters on this thread have written more books than Pamplin has *read* (I'm in double figures as an author myself, and I strongly suspect that Mr Pamplin isn't as a reader).

Phone recharged and reclaimed

Reading my last post, I'm very uncomfortable with it but feel best to let it stand so I can either be put straight, reprimanded, educated, or whatever.

I think I understand part of what you're saying: Rocky uses "GIRLS" and "girly" as insults; he thinks he needs to establish his alphaness against Dennis; he beats up Carl for a similar reason; he tries to solve problems through intimidation using bluster and physical violence. He's an unreconstructed old-timey macho dude, which seems like an odd juxtapostition with doing gay sex work. Also, as he makes gendered insults, it's tempting to use gendered insults back.
However, shaming any individual for being in prostitution or sex work feeds into the general sense that it's shameful. So I think the idea is that even Rocky should be spared on behalf of the general social climate. Also, poking holes in Rocky's aggressive bluster is one thing; but shaming him for something that he may have done out of desperation is another.
I'm not telling you off though. These are just my thoughts.

Yep, this -- and if I struck anyone (especially John, who's been a friend for a long time) as telling them off, I apologise. I was more trying to separate out in my own head what about this thread struck me as reasonable and unreasonable than trying to point a wagging finger.

Well, thanks for the heads-up everybody! Obviously, I gotta get caught up on my UK Beach Boys' compilations.

Yeah, it was a top forty hit over here, so it appears on most of the more thorough compilations.
(LA was actually the best album in terms of generating UK charting singles the band had had since 20/20, with Here Comes The Night going top forty, Lady Lynda making number six, and Sumahama going to forty-five. The Beach Boys' chart career over here is surprisingly different...)

[The Best Of The Beach Boys]

I think "Here Comes The Night" is well produced, the lead and backing vocals are excellent, and, having heard it on AM radio in 1979 while cruising around, it sounded pretty good. I'm still waiting for an official digital/CD release of the single version so I can put it on a comp!

Released on the 1995 2CD UK comp The Best Of The Beach Boys.

Also on the 3-CD Platinum Collection: Sounds Of Summer Edition, which is still in print and probably the best-value compilation you could imagine -- sixty songs for £10.25 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Platinum-Collection-Sounds-Summer/dp/B00023XWIW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1457809263&sr=8-1&keywords=beach+boys+platinum+collection
(The second Fun Fun Fun on the tracklisting is the Status Quo version).

My ratings for both albums -- bearing in mind that these are two albums I think are overrated by fandom generally...

River Song - 4
What's Wrong - 2
Moonshine - 3
Friday Night - 3
Dreamer - 3
Thoughts of You - 4
Time - 2
You & I - 2
Pacific Ocean Blues - 3
Farewell My Friend - 4
Rainbows - 3
End of the Show - 4

Slip On Through: 4
This Whole World: 5
Add Some Music: 2
Got To Know The Woman: 3
Deirdre: 2
It's About Time: 5
Tears In The Morning: 2
All I Wanna Do: 3
Forever: 5
Our Sweet Love: 2
At My Window: 2
Cool Cool Water: 4

Same exact shtick as Baltimore...and Lancaster the past two years!

Mike sticks with what works when it comes to his between-song patter. There are huge chunks where he hasn't varied even the timing in years or sometimes decades -- I can talk along with it just as easily as I can sing along with the songs.
In some ways it's a shame, because when he's had to vary it he can come across as a lot less slick -- for example on the 2008 UK tour, when they had a mini TM set in the middle, and he talked about how much those songs meant to him, it seemed for a few minutes like we weren't seeing an act, but the real Mike. But on the other hand, all the "now it's time to have an intermission... followed by a nap. That's what you get for coming to see a used rock group" kind of stuff always does go down well with audiences.

And always bear in mind that while we obsessive fans are word perfect on Mike's stage patter - and Brian's too, for that matter - it's new to Joe Q. Public.

Quite. A lot of the complaints people have about Mike's show (though by no means all of them, of course) seem to boil down to "he's not doing this for me, why isn't he doing this for meeeee?"
Anyone on this board's idea of "the perfect Beach Boys show" would depart enormously from what 99.9% of the audience want -- the fact that so often both bands manage to get very close to pleasing both us *and* the people who just want to hear Barbara Ann and Surfin' USA is a minor miracle.

I always assumed that over-processed voice with Mike right at the end of Make It Big was Al, but you're right, it does sound like Brian...

Because it is ? 

That would certainly be the most likely explanation, yes

I think that the criticism of his known actions before he joined the thread was warranted. Since when does one have to interact with a person before one can criticize their known actions?
And since when is it "bullying" to say you think someone's an ass for going around beating up impaired people?

Yep. Before Pamplin started posting here, what we knew of him was that he was hired muscle who was so inept at his job that he assaulted his employers (though only when they were too impaired to fight back, and only when he had assistance) while failing to prevent his mentally-ill drug-addicted charge from doing himself more damage. Those are things for which it was reasonable to judge him.

In posting here, Pamplin had the opportunity to clarify or change our opinions. Instead he has talked about... more times when he assaulted his employers while they were impaired, and more times when he failed to prevent his mentally-ill drug-addicted charge from damaging himself. He has boasted about these things, and claimed that we should admire him for these disgusting actions. And he has done so while hurling abuse at pretty much anyone else on the board. He has at best confirmed the opinion people already had of him, and at worst significantly lowered it.

Now, I don't approve of the insults about Pamplin's genitalia (which I've thankfully not seen, but I don't like attacks on physical characteristics one can't change), his apparent intelligence (something, again, which he can't change), his questionable literacy (though I do think that pointing out to a semi-literate person that writing a book may not be the best use of whatever talents they have is reasonable), or his apparent past as a sex worker -- if nothing else, there is a very good chance that there are other people on the board for whom some or all of those things are true, and who would be upset by the implication that being like them is shameful. Those attacks are utterly wrong, and the only defence for them is that he did it first.

But attacking him for acting like an obnoxious bully, both here and in the events he talks about? For his numerous admitted physical assaults? For generally acting in an utterly contemptible manner? I think all those things are reasonable enough.

I stopped paying attention many pages ago. Forgive me, for this may have been covered.
Buthow specifically is mike love comparable to johnny johnson? Did Johnny Johnson write lyrics?
I haveread elsewhere online that there was a similar trial analogous to the bri vs mike one with johnny b goode vs chuck wth them on the stand playing songs and such. Anyone got those transcripts?
     

No, Johnny Johnson came up with much of the music, not the lyrics.

So his lawsuit was just as I imagined and completely without merit.Uh,the words were pretty important. 

No, the lawsuit was not without merit at all -- he lost just because of the length of time between the songwriting and the court case. Just as with Mike's case, he never claimed to have written *everything*, just to have been a co-writer. In Johnson's case he wrote music and someone else wrote the lyrics. In Mike's case he wrote lyrics and someone else wrote the music. Since *both* words and music are "pretty important" to a song, both were unfairly denied credit.

I always assumed that over-processed voice with Mike right at the end of Make It Big was Al, but you're right, it does sound like Brian...

I stopped paying attention many pages ago. Forgive me, for this may have been covered.
Buthow specifically is mike love comparable to johnny johnson? Did Johnny Johnson write lyrics?
I haveread elsewhere online that there was a similar trial analogous to the bri vs mike one with johnny b goode vs chuck wth them on the stand playing songs and such. Anyone got those transcripts?
     

No, Johnny Johnson came up with much of the music, not the lyrics.

I don't have my CD of Still Cruisin' handy to check credits, and I couldn't locate the info in a Google search... does anyone know: Did Melcher produce or co-produce Island Girl or Make It Big?

Being that those are the only new BB songs on that album with Brian audibly on them (Wipeout excluded intentionally), I'm just trying to deduce if there were in fact ANY songs by the BBs produced by Terry that have Brian on them (other than Rock and Roll to the Rescue). Certainly nothing off SIP does.

Is Brian on Make It Big? I've never heard him on there... He *is* on In My Car, though -- are you thinking of that?
Melcher produced every new track on Still Cruisin' except Island Girl (produced by Al), In My Car (produced by Brian and, allegedly, Landy), and Wipe Out ( credit “Produced by Albert Cabrera and Tony Moran (Little Rascals) in association with the Beach Boys, co-produced by Darren Robinson and Damon Wimbley”).

“The secret [...] is abstaining from orgasm.”  

Can't wait to buy my copy.

Wow, he was talking about that to Rolling Stone in the '70s and then still to NME in the '90s. The idea stuck with him. I wonder if he pulled it off.

If he did, he was doing the abstaining wrong...
(In the 1990s interview, as I recall, he said that his father was the one who'd told him not to orgasm, which conjures up all sorts of unpleasant thoughts when one tries to imagine the conversation. I picture Murry going on a Jack D. Ripper-style rant about women stealing precious bodily fluids, and Brian taking it to heart as fatherly advice...)

The article about the forthcoming Uncut Ultimate Guide to the Beach Boys had this:

'Seven years later, a tentatively recovering Brian Wilson played his own piano version of “Satisfaction” to me, and followed it up with a sublime new take on one of his earliest classics. “If you put ‘Surfer Girl’ on the radio, I’ll give you 100 bucks,” he said, before deciding that his estranged bandmates were “assholes. I oughta beat the hell out of them all.”'

It certainly doesn't prove the claims made by Rocky but it seems to show that Brian felt like it.

http://www.uncut.co.uk/uncut-editors-diary/the-ultimate-music-guide-to-the-beach-boys-73042

Yeah, I read that interview when it first came out (it was in an issue of Vox magazine as I recall). If I remember right (I *may* be conflating two interviews here) that was the one where he also said that Carl couldn't sing at all and was an asshole, and that Al was a nice guy but not a very good singer. Very odd interview.

Boy I bet some legal representatives are going to have a field day when this comes out.

Libel laws in the US are much more lax than those in the UK. It's really hard to sue for libel in the US.

It's very, very, easy for people from any country to sue for libel *in* the UK, though, if they have a reputation over here (which everyone Pamplin has mentioned, except maybe the clown, does), and if even a single copy of the libellous writing gets published over here.

Maybe Mike should see the movie before calling it a lie.  Also, his portrayal in the film to me made him look like he was worried about the hit-making potential - not exactly damning.  Like I said, he should see the movie.

I agree here. I don't think he comes off badly at all in the film -- and I suspect *he* would think he came off better in it than I do (since some of his concerns are portrayed as rather more reasonable than I think they were).

You can choose to believe that all memoirs have "hard facts" but you will be disappointed. They may have some facts, and when given, like the one ol' Rocky gave, they should be accurate and checked.

Indeed. I recall an industry mag ran a competition to see who could find the most errors in David Niven's admittedly excellent autobiography The Moon's A Balloon, and the winner came up with over thirty (if you want to read what really happened - which is if anything more interesting and funny - read Niv by Graham Lord. Astonishingly, given the distinctly unflattering portrait it paints, it's authorised).

Of course, David Niven was a witty, charming, literate, much-loved figure, who was interesting at least as much for a forty-year body of his own work as for the celebrities he knew. Possibly Mr. Pamplin would not be afforded the same benefit of doubt as Niven.

I'm confused. Are people genuinely taken with this guy, or is this sort of like everyone is joking around, and Rocky Raccoon isn't in on the joke?

It's the latter.
(Which said, assuming Pamplin *did* have a period in sex work, it's not really something one should mock him for. He's admitted to enough horrific acts in this thread without picking on something he quite possibly did out of desperation and which between consenting adults causes no-one any harm.)

Same exact shtick as Baltimore...and Lancaster the past two years!

Mike sticks with what works when it comes to his between-song patter. There are huge chunks where he hasn't varied even the timing in years or sometimes decades -- I can talk along with it just as easily as I can sing along with the songs.
In some ways it's a shame, because when he's had to vary it he can come across as a lot less slick -- for example on the 2008 UK tour, when they had a mini TM set in the middle, and he talked about how much those songs meant to him, it seemed for a few minutes like we weren't seeing an act, but the real Mike. But on the other hand, all the "now it's time to have an intermission... followed by a nap. That's what you get for coming to see a used rock group" kind of stuff always does go down well with audiences.